Confessions of a Ranting Deatheater
by ASemipotentAuthor
Summary: Deanna McCuhulain's life story is an odd one to say the least. Never mind that a pureblood spent most of her childhood with Irish Muggles. But how does anyone, within a period of 24 hours, go from aspiring Auror to inexpendable Deatheater?
1. Prologue: Welcome to Azkaban

Disclaimer: I own nothing whatsoever….except Deanna…..and her family….and Paddy….and Greg…and maybe a couple of other things that I can't be bothered to claim at this time of night. Everything else belongs to JK Rowling.

Confessions of a Ranting Deatheater Prologue: Welcome to Azkaban 

"Welcome to Azkaban Wizarding prison. First thing you need to know is never try to snog a Dementor…Don't know why anyone would _want_ to snog a Dementor, but if the urge ever comes, just say _no_. Second thing you need to know is that the food here sucks. You see, the chef is generally in a hurry to get done and get away from here, for some unfathomable reason. Third thing you need to know is: don't let anything that anyone in this hellhole says get to you. They're all mental. Including me. _Especially_ me. Third…no, I just said that…_fourth_ thing you need to know is that you will soon reach such an intense level of madness that you will no longer care that the food is bloody awful, the people are psychopaths, and that wizard-Dementor relationships are simply not meant to be.

Of course, I'm not all _that _mad yet, certainly not as mad as I should be after a year in this living nightmare, here in this maximum security center with no one in the next cell to talk to. Until you, anyway. I've not yet gone silent, like some of them do, nor have I taken to frequently conversing with invisible people….though I _did_ once address the floor as "Tom Riddle." Long story. But, all things considered, I think what little sanity I had before suffered minimal damage.

I've developed a little trick to keep madness at bay. For me 'tis just prolonging the inevitable, but it just might work for you. Find a single, simple thought, not a happy thought, mind you; the Dementors'll snatch that away quicker than you can say, "straightjacket." Not a particularly pleasant thought, just something that reminds you who you are and why Dementor-snogging is a bad idea. You may have a really good one. Mine, unfortunately, is depressing enough to drive me insane in its own right, only at a significantly slower rate.

Mind if I rant at you? You don't seem to be much in the mood to do any talking yourself. Can't say I blame you. My name is Deanna McCuhulain, and my story begins, I suppose, with the thought that keeps me almost sane: _I could have been an Auror_."


	2. 1: Family History and Potatoes

Disclaimer: Long time no see! And when I say long time, I mean Shame-on-you-you-lousy-excuse-for-an-author long time. As a matter of fact, it has been almost a year since I last posted. Don't tell anyone. I heard they throw people in Azkaban for that. All right, now that we have established that I am a disgrace to the world of FanFiction, on with the disclaiming! Not much has changed. I still own neither Hogwarts nor Honeydukes nor Hogsmeade, or anything else from the Harry Potter series. Nor, for that matter, do I own the 70's rock band Queen (though that would be siriusly spiffy).

Deanna: You spelled serious wrong, you loony American. SA: I know. It's meant to be a bad pun on Sirius Black's name….by the way, folks, I don't own SB, I just stalk him.

Deanna: But it's _still_ wrong because it's not capitalized. SA: So? D: Sirius is meant to be capitalized! SA: Silence! I own you! And your family! I also own the O'Malcons! D: Bah! They're just a bloody carbon copy of the Malfoys! SA: Ah, but they're Irish, so they're better. D: Can't argue with that. SA: I thought so. I also own Paddy and Paddy's ancestors! I also own this glass of milk. D: You mean the one I just drank? SA: You are so dead! D: Eeeeep!

Confessions of a Ranting Deatheater Chapter I: Family History and Potatoes 

Like most kids, I went through various phases concerning what I wanted to do with my future life. There was a time when I wanted to play Quidditch for Ireland (out of the question: I was decent at best, mediocre at medium and abysmal once in a blue moon). There was a time when I wanted to start a rock band, a time when I wanted to be a circus clown, a time when I wanted to be an astrophysicist (I had no idea what an astrophysicist was, but I'd heard the word from one of our Muggle neighbors and it sounded undeniably cool). And years later, I would set my sights on becoming an Auror. Never in a million years had I imagined myself becoming a Death Eater. McCuhulains, as a general rule, didn't get involved in dark arts or Wizarding bigotry. "Leave that sort of nonsense to the O'Malcons," my father always used to say.

The McCuhulains are one of the two oldest Irish pureblood families; that's us and the O'Malcons. Both families have always been proud of their respective heritage and history. And a good part of that heritage and history is that the two families had, since the earliest of records, generally hated each others' guts. Think Gryffindor versus Slytherin and you'll have some idea of McCuhulain-O'Malcon relations. The key modern-day…disagreement between the two clans was on the subject of blood. The O'Malcons had a general tendency to place an unnecessary importance on the purity of blood, while we McCuhulains….well….didn't. Both clans believed themselves to be right, and neither would accept the other's convictions on the matter.

We McCuhulains trace our ancestry back to the obscurely legendary Cuhulain. According to the more well-known version of this little-known legend, Cuhulain was a man of incredible strength who, once upon a time, accidentally killed his neighbor's dog. When the neighbor complained that his family no longer had a dog to protect them from enemies, he pledged that he would do the dog's former duty, and took on the name "Cuhulain" or "dog." He went on to fight many battles, and there are a good many other tales, in which fact is all but indistinguishable from the imaginings of drunken story-tellers. One tale, however, rings clear: the story of Cuhulain's death. He was struck down fending off a great army of enemies. When he fell, the army hung back, fearful of a trap, for Cuhulain had fought with an almost unnatural fierceness, and no one wanted to go any closer until they were sure he was dead. 'Twas not until a great yellow bird swooped down and began drinking Cuhulain's blood that the enemy troops proceeded to invade the Keep.

The Wizarding sequence of events, however, is a slightly different version, in which Cuhulain takes his role as guard dog a step further and becomes an Animagus, actually turning himself into a dog, which would later become the symbol of the McCuhulain clan. The O'Malcons' family crest has varied through the ages. Sometimes it has resembles something along the lines of a canary, sometimes it looks more like a falcon. Always, the bird is yellow, and often with blood on its beak or talons.

You make the connection.

Thus, we have been feuding on and off with the O'Malcons since the early Middle Ages. Ooh! There's this one really great story about the time my great-great-times-infinity grand-something-or-other stole the O'Malcons' house-elf. 'Twas in the late 15 or early 16 hundreds, and the McCuhulain family had fallen on hard times. The way our current house-elf Paddy told it, our ancestor Connor McCuhulain was too poor to have "a pot to pi—erm…do his business in." I asked Paddy why Connor didn't make one out of clay.

"He woulda done if he'd had enough money for clay," Paddy explained, exasperated. "Honestly, child, 'tis only the beginning of the story and ye already have questions! Do ye have ta have everything spelled out for ya?"

"But Paddy," I puzzled, "Isn't clay made out of dirt?"

"He was too poor to afford dirt. 'Tis implied."

"You had to pay for dirt back then?"

"Do ye want ta hear the story or no?"

"Yes."

"Then sit down, eat your chocolate frog 'n be quiet!"

Anyhow, Connor McCuhulain was poor to an absurd degree. Had invested everything in some ocean venture involving the spice trade in Asia, and lost it all when the ship exploded for no apparent reason a hundred yards out. Paddy suspects that there was some sabotage on the part of the O'Malcons. But then Paddy will also tell anyone who will listen that the O'Malcons were responsible for the Irish Potato Famine. Whether or not the O'Malcons were involved in the financial catastrophe, the fact remained that there was no money. In fact, Connor owed money to just about everyone else involved in the venture. Apparently he had neglected to read the fine print on some bit of parchment he had signed. Thus, everything was sold to pay off the debts and all 19 McCuhulains went to live in a one-room hut with a roof that didn't know how to stay thatched. So, there was Connor without two bronze Knuts to rub together and with a horde of family-members to feed,13 of whom were ravenous teenagers who looked like they might tear down the hut and eat it if he didn't do something fast. At first, pride wouldn't let him, but when the teenagers started showing signs of considering cannibalism, Connor McCuhulain did the unimaginable: he turned to the O'Malcons.

"Wait a minute, Paddy," I interrupted at this point in the story. "I don't understand."

"Don't understand what?"

"It's just, how come Connor didn't transfigure something into food?"

"One of the teenagers ate his wand," Paddy answered. Paddy always had an answer for just about everything. Not necessarily a correct answer, but an answer nonetheless.

"Didn't anybody else in the family have a wand?" I asked.

"What? Multiple wands in a household in those days?" Paddy exclaimed. "Yeh'd have ta be outa yer mind! But I'm forgettin', ya haven't been ta Hogwarts yet. Ye see, Deanna, back in those days, there were lots o' witch hunts happenin' off and on just about all the time. Muggles those days weren't quite as smart back then. Liked to set fire ta things, see. Don't know why; that's just the way it was. Back in those days, ya had ta be precious careful about what kind of magical things ya left layin' around. Looked kinda suspicious, don't ya know. And of course, 'twas simply easier not to leave things lyin' around if ya only had one of 'em. So lots o' families had only one wand. Now, back to the story, if ya don't mind."

So, Connor went to Frank O'Malcon, who found the whole situation quite amusing.

"So, McCuhulain, I hear you lost a ship. However did you manage that?" O'Malcon smirked.

"Blew up. Any idea how that might've happened?" Connor said pointedly.

" My guess would be gunpowder. Muggles are always toying with things that make a bigger mess than they can clean up. I suppose that this is what comes of doing business with them," O'Malcon sneered. "So what brings you here, McCuhulain? Not looking for charity, surely? 'Twould be a _grievous_ thing to see the mighty house of McCuhulain fall so far."   
"Ye need not…. 'grieve' yourself, O'Malcon," Connor forced out through gritted teeth. "I was actually….wondering, in fact…..if you might mayhap have some…..work that I might do….maybe."

"Pardon? Methinks I did not quite catch that," O'Malcon put his hand to his ear mockingly. "Could you repeat it? And mayhap annunciate a bit better this time?"

"I—was wondering," Connor glared, "If I could work for you."

"Weeell," O'Malcon drawled with a venomous smile, "For a fellow _pureblood_, I can certainly arrange s_omething_." ( Paddy seemed to think that the "venomous smile" was very important to the story. He never left it out, no matter how many times he told the story. Or any other story that involved O'Malcons, for that matter. A recurring detail, and one that didn't change, whether Paddy had a pint in him or not.)

Anyhow, Connor McCuhulain went over to the O'Malcon estate and spent the day doing every degrading task that Frank O'Malcon could think of. At the end of the day, O'Malcon threw a handful of coins on the floor, watched Connor pick them up, and then left the room. Extremely depressed, Connor turned to leave as well, when a random house elf appeared out of nowhere.

"Erm…hello," Connor told the rather shabby-looking house elf, which was dressed in what appeared to be an assortment of rather grubby bits of parchment.

"Sir McCuhulain," the ragged creature said with a quick bow. "You left your coat in the kitchen."

Connor blinked. " I did?" For some reason, he did not recall bringing it with him at all.

"Aye," the house-elf nodded. "Or, leastwise, 'tis in the kitchen now, so I suppose ye must have done…unless, o' course someone else put it there for ye ta find."

"Is that something that someone is likely to have done?" Connor inquired.

"Don't be askin' Tatty," the house-elf replied. "Tatty knows nothin' o' clothes. Mayhap coats go walkin' around by themselves all the time, for all I know."

Connor blinked. Again. If he was not very much mistaken, this 'Tatty' person had just exhibited something remarkably close to sarcasm. A sarcastic house-elf…was that even possible? Connor shook his head. He was too tired to bother with magical paradoxes at the moment.

"Right then, 'Tatty' is it? Which way is the kitchen?"

"This way," Tatty chirped, leading the way down a corridor. "We'll take the servants' corridor so we don't run inta' the bastar—I mean the master." Right then, as if possessed, Tatty's left hand shot up and yanked his own ear. He continued walking as normal.

"So," said Connor. "You're O'Malcon's house-elf then?"

"Were ye thinkin' I was here for the company?" Tatty returned dryly.

They arrived in the kitchen, where Tatty gestured to a green coat that Connor recognized as his own. Go figure. He picked it up and put it on, thanked the house-elf, and was on his way through the back door when he suddenly stopped. His hand had encountered an unfamiliar object in his right pocket. He pulled out a bundle that contained several well-packaged slices of chicken pie wrapped in a napkin. Further inspection of the pocket revealed that someone had somehow managed to cram a fair quantity of bread in the bottom of the pocket. And the left pocket, from the feel of it, seemed to be similarly stuffed. Astonished, Connor turned to look at the house-elf.

Tatty winked. "Make sure ye be bringin' your coat with ya when ye come again. Wouldn't want ta catch a cold, would ye?"

By the time Connor went home, he had decided upon the most sensible course of action: feed his family with the house-elf's gifts, and save the coins that O'Malcon had tossed for future use. Of course, O'Malcon hadn't given Connor any more than just enough for a day's food for a family of 19 (with 13 teenagers), and had not counted on Connor's having any other means of procuring food.

Thus began a pattern that lasted for about six months. Connor would do O'Malcon's bidding for the day, pick up the coins, pass through the kitchen to receive food from Tatty, and then return home. The money was always set aside to someday get the McCuhulain family back on their feet. Connor and Tatty came to develop the sort of bond that only comes from conspiring together behind a tyrant's back.

But, after six months, O'Malcon discovered what Tatty had been up to. Connor went one day to the O'Malcon residence to find Frank O'Malcon standing in the front doorway, reddish-maroon in the face, bellowing explosively at Tatty. Strangely, Tatty didn't seem particularly concerned: he was too busy doing cartwheels across the lawn in his newly-acquired tunic.

"How dare you!" O'Malcon roared at the house-elf. "You are BANISHED! DISGRACED! Be gone from here immediately!"

"I fooled ye! I fooooled ye!" Tatty chanted in a sing-song voice, trampling through the O'Malcons' flower bed. "Ye old fool! Ya actually thought you were punishing me, didn't ya! Ya really thought 'twould be a punishment ta be free of ye, ya stinkin', reekin', poisonous, odious, bastardly, dastardly, arrogant, stuck-up, bird-brained, fornicating son-of-a-bitch! Ha-ha-ha Tra-la-la Fa-la-la! I foooooooled ye! I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

O'Malcon stood gaping as the house-elf burst into an Irish jig. Connor doubled over, laughing uncontrollably.

"McCuhulain," hissed O'Malcon, " 'Tis only the house-elf who's leaving. I am not finished with you yet, McCuhulain. And I swear to you, you impudent lying blood-traitor, you won't be laughing much longer." O'Malcon then rounded on Tatty. "And _you_!" he spat. "You forget that you are now homeless, friendless, and disgraced! Where do you think you will go? What do you think you will do? Fool! Oh yes, you are _free_! Free to starve in the street!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Connor stepped in. "Tatty and all of his descendents will always have a home with the McCuhulains! And no chicken-hearted snake of an O'Malcon is ever going to change that!"

"McCuhulain, if you take that demented little wretch with you," O'Malcon threatened, "You will never work here again, nor for any other wizard who values his reputation. You know my influence. You know what I am capable of. And if you give that filthy urchin so much as a crust of bread, I swear you will get no more help from me."

Connor seemed to contemplate a moment, shrugged, and then took Tatty's hand. "Goodbye then, O'Malcon!" he said cheerfully. "I think I've had quite enough of your… '_help_' for one lifetime."

"I do hope, Sir McCuhulain," Tatty said as he and Connor walked away, leaving O'Malcon to spit and squawk. "That ye've saved the coins?"

"Of course," Connor answered. "Why?"

"I would like ta suggest a wee…investment," Tatty grinned.

"Well, I suppose I should get a wand," Connor discussed. "There should be a wee bit left over afterwards. What do ye suggest?"

"Buy a potato."

"A what?"

"A potato."

"One of those funny brown lumps from the Americas?"

"Aye."

"Why?"

"Well, once ye've got one, ye'll know more about them, and then ye can transfigure, say, dirt clods ta make more."

"What would I do with a bunch of potatoes?"

"Eat some, plant the others."

"But why potatoes?"

"'Tis a good, wholesome food, 'tis a commodity, and 'tis fairly easy ta grow, from what I'm told. If ye grow 'em here in Ireland, ye'll be able ta sell 'em for lower prices than the imported ones, so more people will buy 'em. Be the first ta start mass-producin' potatoes and ye'll be well ta do in no time."

McCuhulain shook his head. "Why would anyone want to buy a brown lumpy thing? It'll never catch on!"

"Trust me," Tatty insisted. "I may not know much about wands or clothes or the Spanish Inquisition, but I know food! 'Twould not surprise me if the whole o' Ireland'll be livin' on em' in 20 years or so. Ye get yer wand, and then let me get the potato."

Of course, Tatty was right. After two years, they started construction of the new McCuhulain manor, built on the foundations of some ancient Celtic ruins. And by the time that construction was finished, five years later, the McCuhulain family had officially adopted the policy of trusting Tatty unconditionally. However, Tatty continued to maintain his position as a free elf, and was never bound to the McCuhulain family as a servant. Actually, he was more like an adopted family-member than anything else. The generation following Connor took to addressing the house-elf as "Uncle Tatty," and regarded him as a third parent-figure.

In the fifteen years following the McCuhulains' rise back into fortune, the O'Malcons realized just what a valuable asset they had lost, and often accused the McCuhulains of "stealing their house-elf." This led to a few brawls, duels, skirmishes, and minor battles, which accomplished nothing whatsoever on either side, except to convince each family that they had satisfied their honor. But, in about 20 years, the O'Malcons forgot this particular grievance: by then, the two families had something new to fight about. I believe it had something to do with Quidditch, beer, and stampeding sheep.

Author's note: I love summer! For one thing, I actually had time to work on this fanfic, and on an original novel I'm attempting to write (literary nerds unite!) Also, I've started going back to karate again (Kiya!) And I went to see Il Divo in concert. (Drool Their voices alone make me swoon. And let's not even get started on the rest of them.) Ooh! Also, I got to dress up as a pirate to entertain little kids! I got to say "Yarrr!" and "Harrr!" all I wanted! (ok, so I need help). Lately I've been reading things I actually want to read! (I recommend Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson for anyone who enjoys the occasional sci-fi/thriller-with-a-dash-of-humor-and-some-angst-on-the-side. one of my new favorites). And, of course, I recommend the essential fantasy masters: J.R.R. Tolkien (if you don't like The Hobbit, try the LotR trilogy, if you don't like the trilogy, try The Hobbit), J.K. Rowling (in case you haven't guessed), and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (WARNING: NEVER write a fanfic on his work. It is officially FORBIDDEN. Goodkind will smite you if you try it.) No reviews as of yet, except for my friend, ClearlyCanadian. She gets a free Johnny Depp. And you don't. Ever. I do, however, have a few elves in the back room. Get 'em while supplies last!


	3. Bicycles and Broomsticks: Ch 3

**Disclaimer: **

SA:I don't own anything. Except for the stuff that I own.

Deanna: Well, _that's_ not obvious or vague at all.

SA: And _that's_ not even remotely sarcastic.

D:It's your own fault if I am.

SA:Stupid fictional character. Look, if it's mentioned in HP, I don't own it. If it's here and it's not in HP or any other published work, it's mine (muahahahaha!)

D: ….I'm not an it.

SA:Whatever. I still own you.

D:But you still don't own the 70's rock band Queen.

SA:I'm working on it. Now go be fictional somewhere else.

(P.S. I don't own the bass turd joke either. That's from Isildo and ClearlyCanadian. Those who recognize it from The HarryPottership of the Ring…or something like that, don't worry: Isildo and ClearlyCanadian know where I live. If it bothers them, they'll come beat me with six-foot poles themselves.)

**Chapter II:**

**Bicycles and Broomsticks**

"I'm going to kill Lonan O'Malcon!" my father announced as he stomped through the door. I was five years old, and this was not the first time that Dad had come home from work angry.

"If ye must," Paddy called from the kitchen. "But don't expect me to break you out of Azkaban."

"Fine then," Dad countered. "Who needs Avada Kedavra? I'll do it the Muggle way. No court would convict me for getting rid of that bastard son of a—"

"Cuilen!" yelled Mum. "Just **_what_** were you saying around Deanna?"

"Erm… I was just saying that O'Malcon is a-erm…bass-turd. Yeah. You know, the turd of a bass."

"What's a bass?" I asked.

"It's a type of fish," Dad answered.

"What's a turd?" I asked.

"It's…well, erm…poo."

"Fish have poo?"

"Yes. Just ask anyone who has a fish tank."

"And what's a son-of-a?" I pressed further. I was a very curious child, and looking back, I am quite sure that I was also a very annoying one at that. I really don't know how my family put up with me. Some say that curiosity killed the cat, but I think it more likely that the cat's parents did him in.

"A son-of-a?" Dad repeated. "Well, very few people know this, but a son-of-a is in fact a type of extremely rare…turtle."

"Oooh! Where can I find one?" I asked, excited.

"Sorry, there aren't any in Ireland. They only live in….erm…obscure parts of the Atlantic Ocean. And New Zealand. Don't know why. They just do." He looked up at Mum. "There. See? Perfectly innocent."

Mum arched an eyebrow. "New Zealand?"

"As far as the short one knows."

"Which short one?" Paddy stuck his head through the kitchen doorway. "Because that little munchkin of yours is getting taller than me, and 'tis a wee bit depressing, come 'ta think of it."

"I'm not short," I pouted.

"Don't worry," Mum assured me. "You'll always be taller than Paddy."

"Oy!" yelled Paddy. "Don't ya be makin' me chuck potatoes at ye!"

There were many conversations like that when I was little. You see, once upon a time, in the dark ages that my parents referred to as: "Before You Were Born," my dad was a Beater for the Kenmare Kestrels. Meanwhile, Lonan O'Malcon was also a Beater. On the same team. They put up with one another tolerably well for a few years, until one post-victory party during which their drunken brawling sparked the first major Quidditch riot between supporters of the same team. It was decided that the further away the two Beaters were from one another, the better. So O'Malcon went to play for the Ballycastle Bats, and everything was relatively calm for a while.

That is, until the Kestrels and the Bats met on the Quidditch pitch. Apparently it was a very vicious match; my dad and O'Malcon seemed absolutely determined that every Bludger they hit was sent in each other's direction. At some point, in fact, both Bludgers got between them, and they spent more or less ten minutes smacking them back and forth at each other. The other Beaters got bored and, left to their own devices, the Bats' other Beater flew in circles of varying sizes, and the Kestrels' other Beater dozed off. When one of the Bludgers finally escaped from the McCuhulain-O'Malcon volley, it slammed into the circling Beater's shoulder, ricocheted off and collided with the sleeping Beater's stomach, and then swerved around to hit my dad in the back of the head. O'Malcon was so busy laughing that he forgot about the second Bludger, and didn't know what had hit him until he was staring up from the ground while Mediwizards tried to figure out how to put his nose back together.

My mum, who had about three weeks to go before her first baby (that's me) arrived, and had quite enough stress to handle without my dad's getting himself brained by Bludgers insisted that he end his career in professional Quidditch in favor of a safer occupation. It took all of Mum's efforts, and those of both Dad's parents and Mum's, combined with a lecture from Paddy about the importance of his remaining brain cells, but finally Dad relented. He took a job with the Nimbus Racing Broom Company, mostly in Broomstick Design and Engineering.

Everyone was content for a while, but apparently my family has great difficulty going too long without anything eventful happening. So it was not long before Lonan O'Malcon was also working for the Nimbus Racing Broom Company. More specifically in Broomstick Design and Engineering. Dad didn't want to put up with O'Malcon, so he requested a transfer to Broomstick Testing, which had interested him anyway. Knowing Dad's history with Lonan O'Malcon, the boss decided that this was probably a good idea. Unfortunately, the transfer may have actually worsened things. Think about it. O'Malcon's job was to design and engineer brooms. Dad's job was to ride, inspect, test, and critique said brooms. And, well, let's face it; some people just can't take constructive criticism. And O'Malcon was one of them. So when it came time for Dad to test O'Malcon's first broom design, things got a bit tense. Dad noted that the balance could be improved upon, or something like that, and said so in the report he sent back. O'Malcon demanded to know who had written the report, and, when he found out, was furious. He then set about finding the testing rooms and tracking down my dad.

"What the hell is this?" O'Malcon hissed, throwing the report on Dad's desk.

"A report," Dad answered stiffly. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"The balance shouldn't be off. I designed that broom myself! And no way in hell am I letting the biggest blood-traitor in the century tell me that the balance is off!"

"I just tested the broom and recorded how it performed," Dad tried to explain. "The balance was the only issue, and it really is a rare thing when the prototype only has one glitch. You can't expect to get it on the first try."

"No!" O'Malcon slammed his fist on the desk. "If there were something wrong with it, I would be the first to know! Not you, McCuhulain! I took every possible step to perfection and I will not have the likes of you telling me what's wrong with my design!"

"Look," Dad snapped, "I'm just doing my job, I've ridden that broom in all conditions imaginable, and I'm telling you the balance is off!"

"And **_I_** am telling **_you_** that this broom is a work of art!" O'Malcon roared.

"I never said it wasn't!" my Dad retorted. "It's a beautiful broom with the potential to be the best thing we've ever marketed! It just needs a little work! I'm sure you can fix it!"

"Don't tell me how to do my job!" roared O'Malcon.

"Don't tell me how to do mine!" Dad roared back.

The next day, the other broom testers sent in their reports, and every one of them agreed that, though it was an otherwise amazing broom, the balance was off. O'Malcon was forced to admit the flaw in his design and to fix it. When the new, improved version was sent in for testing, O'Malcon made a point of being present for Dad's testing sessions. With each test, O'Malcon grew increasingly more self-satisfied.

"Well?" he said smugly, as Dad landed. "Is it not perfect? You cannot even pretend to find fault with it now, McCuhulain."

"For once your arrogance is justified," Dad admitted, dismounting. "I confess that it's the best broom I've ever ridden. Once it's reached its full potential, it could take Quidditch to a whole new level…"

"What do you mean 'once it's reached its full potential'?" O'Malcon demanded. "You admitted it was flawless."

"Well of course there are no more flaws," Dad affirmed. "You saw it fly yourself. That's why this is the perfect time to make it even better! I'd wager that if you rearranged the twig formation in the back, played a bit with the charms on it, experimented with different types of wood, you could make it the fastest, most maneuverable…."

"It's already the best!" O'Malcon snapped. "And it's my design, not yours McCuhulain! So quit telling me what to do with it!"

"Surely you're not just going to market it like this!" Dad exclaimed, scandalized. "It's better than anything else currently on the market, true, but it could be so much more! You've played Quidditch, you know as well as I do that you could improve upon it! What you've created has the potential to go beyond a Quidditch player's wildest dreams! I can't believe you could possibly settle for less!"

"This is my design!" O'Malcon yelled. "I know what it's capable of and I don't need you to tell me when it's ready to market! If there were anything left to change, I would have noticed it!"

"You haven't changed at all!" Dad shouted in frustration. "You didn't notice a bloody Bludger until it had practically knocked your nose off!"

O'Malcon's hand went to his nose for a moment, and his eyes narrowed. "My nose is none of your damn business! And neither is my broom for that matter!"

"I agree about the nose," Dad couldn't resist commenting. "But the broom technically is my business since I'm sort of testing it."

"Shut up!" O'Malcon snapped. "You're done testing it, so hand it over to the next tester and be done.

The broom went onto the market under the name of "Winged Lightening" with no further improvements made. Dad mourned the waste of opportunity.

O'Malcon's next broom design had a rather peculiar glitch: as soon as my dad tried to ride it, the broom swung up and smacked him in the nose. The broom repeated this behavior throughout Dad's tests, always hitting him directly in the nose, and eventually breaking it (his nose, not the broom). Once again, Lonan O'Malcon was present throughout the testing process, this time with a suppressed smile on his lips and a poisonous gleam in his sharp green-and-gold eyes.

"Let me try something," O'Malcon waved his wand after Dad dismounted dripping blood. After that, the broom was magically cured of its defect, just after Dad had finished testing, giving the other testers no trouble at all. And Dad was pissed.

Thus began a long line of grievances involving Lonan O'Malcon, though most of them were far more subtle. Things steadily worsened to the point at which almost every day Dad would return home and immediately launch into a rant beginning with some variation of: "I hate Lonan O'Malcon."

I was six years old when Dad decided once and for all that he'd had enough. Mum was expecting triplets in three months (Patrick, Brian, and Chris), and went through rather odd mood-swings that tended to involve her listening to a Muggle rock band called _Queen_ non-stop. For days and nights on end, songs such as _Bohemian Rhapsody _or _We Will Rock You_ could be heard blaring through the house cranked up to top volume, or sometimes even magically enhanced to almost three times top volume. No one seemed to mind half as much as any sane family would; I was too small to know that bigger and louder was not always better…a lesson I'm not entirely sure I've ever learned, come to think of it; Dad was pretty obsessed with the band too, and took a mild sleeping potion at night so it wouldn't keep him awake; Paddy crafted a pair of ear plugs for himself out of potatoes, which muffled the sound significantly, and he generally agreed with us that if incredibly loud Muggle rock made Mum happy, then we should be happy too.

On one particular evening, I was hopping around the kitchen singing along to _We Are the Champions_ at the top of my six-year-old lungs. Mum was trying to set the table, and Paddy was trying to persuade her to sit down and let him do it. I went to the garden window for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes, hoping Dad would be home soon, and this time I saw him at the broom-shed, putting away his Nimbus. Dad tended to Apparate only as far as was necessary to avoid Muggle detection, but he always flew most of the way to and from work. I don't remember for the life of me what model Nimbus it was he rode, but I remember distinctly that it was absolutely never any design of O'Malcon's.

"Daddy's home!" I chimed.

Mum ran into the next room to turn off Queen, so that in the far-too-likely event of Dad wanting to fume about Lonan O'Malcon, he would have peace and quiet in which to do so.

"How does he look, Paddy?" Mum called, rushing back as quickly as she could with triplets inside.

Paddy peered out the window. "He looks…happy. Fit ta' dance a jig, it seems."

Actually, it was more like a waltz than a jig that carried him to the door, but that was not the point: the point was that for once he entered the house and WASN'T in a mood to kill anyone, not even Lonan O'Malcon.

Dad swung the door open, waltzed in humming, kissed Mum, and then handed her a bottle of champagne.

"Good day at work, then?" Mum inquired afterwards, looking rather confused.

"You could say that, Aideen," he grinned back at her. Then he picked me up, swung me onto his back, and started racing in little victory laps around the kitchen.

"Well," Mum whispered to Paddy. "There are worse ways to have a nervous breakdown."

"No," Paddy shook his head. "There's a reason for this. Ye don't think that maybe…well, ya know how he said he was gonna' kill O'Malcon? Ye don't think that maybe he's actually gone and—"

"No, Paddy," Dad laughed. "I haven't killed anyone. And I don't think I'll have to now!"

"What exactly _have_ you done?" Mum asked tentatively.

Dad turned the record player back on, and it began to blare _We Are the Champions._ "Perfect song for the occasion!" smiled cryptically, turning down the volume so that he could be heard. "Let's open the champagne and I'll tell you!"

When Mum, Dad, and Paddy were each holding a glass of champagne, and I had a cup of pumpkin juice, Dad stood up and announced:

"I have quit my job with the Nimbus Racing Broom Company, and will now be going back into Quidditch. Cheers!"

"You WHAT!" Mum and Paddy cried out in unison.

"Am through working with O'Malcon and am going back into Quidditch," Dad repeated, suppressing a grin. "That is to say, I will be teaching private Quidditch lessons to kids."

"Oh!" Mum sighed relief. "Erm…when did you decide this?"

"I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, actually," Dad answered. "Bob O'Cassey asked a few weeks ago if I could come teach his son Tim some Quidditch basics. And I started thinking that helping children to become Quidditch players would be a better use of my time than arguing with O'Malcon. So, there you are. Cheers!"

Mum shrugged. "You're insane, you know that?" and then drank to the unexpected change.

After we had all done the same, Paddy added: "Advertise yourself as 'Former Quidditch Champion Cuilen McCuhulain' and ye shouldn't be havin' any trouble gettin' clients. Once y'are established, ye could even set up a sort of summer Quidditch camp. I could take care of the meals…"

Thus began Dad's new career. And he loved it. Well, given, he didn't love _every_ minute of it; I mean working with kids is a bit unpredictable in that it can be heaven or it can be hell. And, like any teacher, he had to deal with his share of brats. But, what with being the father of a six-year-old, he was fairly well equipped to handle it. There was this one time when some smart-aleck kid refused to return to the ground. Dad asked nicely the first time and was laughed at, sternly the second time and received the reply: "Make me." The third time, Dad said: "You have five seconds to get down here before I send these Bludgers at you! FIVE! FOUR! THREE…" That kid was on the ground again in an eye-blink, and never disobeyed my Dad again. But difficult children tended to be the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, Dad counted himself lucky.

"It's not like teaching say, History of Magic, or Potions," Dad said enthusiastically. "The students are here because they want to be. They all actually _want_ to learn! I swear, I'm the luckiest teacher on the planet! And 'tis so much less complicated than playing Quidditch professionally: the kids are all just in it for the love of the game, to have fun!"

Where in the past he would come steaming through the door and roaring: "Lonan O'Malcon is the root of all evil!" he now had a tendency to come home satisfied and say something to the effect of: "I love this job!" before asking about everyone else's day.

One day, a few months after the triplets were born, Dad came home from a training session, looked around, and asked me:

"Deanna, is Mummy home?"

"Nope," I answered. "She's buying groceries."

"And where's Paddy?"

"Trying to tell the babies a story," I answered. "But they don't understand what he's saying, and they kept intr'upting with baby-noises that doesn't mean anything so I came downstairs to listen to Queen."

"Deanna," my Dad inquired, looking around as if he expected Mum or Paddy to swoop down on him at any minute. "Deanna, how would you like to learn how to play Quidditch?"

"Yes! Yes! Please, Daddy, can I learn right now?" I had seen Dad and his students flying and playing games in the sky, and I had wanted so badly to join them.

Dad nodded. "Yes," he beamed. "Right now."

I remembered that Mum had said I was too little, that I wasn't allowed anywhere near a broom. But I didn't see any reason to tell Dad that.

You're probably thinking that my Dad was completely mental to put a six-year-old on a broomstick, and he probably was. But though he may have been a bit of a lunatic, he was an innovative lunatic. He had constructed some sort of harness-type thing to keep me from falling off of the broom, and by the time we started heading back to the house I could go up, forwards, backwards, and sideways. And I had turned a corner. Once. Very slowly. Dad said that next time we would work on turning some more, try to go a little faster without running into anything, and maybe start throwing a Quaffle back and forth while hovering.

When we arrived at the house, Mum seemed very interested in where we had been.

"We went for a walk," Dad answered. (Technically true, he later explained to me: we had walked to and from the training area.)

She was still somewhat skeptical, but decided to let it go. 'Tis probably a good thing that it was Dad who answered the questions: the story I had ready involved saving a bunch of random Muggles from an army of equally random ninjas, a sleep-walking giant, three orange elephants, and a dancing purple dragon named Mr. Squishy. Not exactly an airtight alibi.

By the end of the month, I could maneuver reasonably well, considering that I was six years old, at a fairly decent speed and could even occasionally catch a Quaffle. My aim (or, more accurately, my lack thereof) in throwing said Quaffle was another matter entirely. Oddly enough, Mum never seemed to question the usual alibi that we had gone for a walk: Dad had what mum liked to call "deceptively innocent-looking eyes," and mum herself was almost constantly busy with the triplets, and to top it all off she seemed to have decided that she would rather not know.

When I turned seven, Mum announced that I needed more interaction with children of my own age.

"Whatever that means," was Dad's response. But Paddy agreed with Mum, and thus I came to meet Eddy O'Brennen, a Muggle boy about my age, and his older sister Susan. She was about nine-ish. I think. Evidently, they were the offspring of the blessed lady who introduced Mum to Queen, which of course meant that they were practically family. It also meant that the three of us together didn't have enough sanity to fill the mind of a schizophrenic lion-taming collector of second-hand water balloons. Come to think of it, I seem to have a vague memory of an incident involving Susan, Eddy, me, 42 water balloons, and a Pensieve…. I also seem to recall Mum and Dad having to come up with some plausible story about why they happened to possess a random basin filled with luminescent liquid. I'm pretty sure I remember Mum warning me that if I ever pulled anything like that again, my friends might have to have their memories modified. Oops. Actually, I'm not entirely certain that their memories weren't wiped at some point. But if they were, I don't remember it.

Since the O'Brennens were constantly in and out of our house, we ended up relocating all blatantly magical items into the basement. There was no need to worry about the Muggles wandering into the basement, for the following reasons: first of all, there's no door, so the only way to get there is to magically drop straight through the floor; secondly, you have to know the password (which I have no intention of telling you, partly because 'tis a family secret, but mostly because I don't feel like it); thirdly, you have to be either a McCuhulain or a house-elf. More about the Basement of Uber-Spiff-Nifftyness later. Yes, I just said uber-spiff-nifftyness. No, that is not the basement's actual name.

In order to maintain the illusion of being Muggles, something had to be done about Paddy. He played such a pivotal role in family life that we couldn't avoid mentioning him, and hiding him in the basement was out of the question. So we disguised him as the world's ugliest midget.

Anyhow, back to the O'Brennens. As time progressed, our little band of lunatics grew. After all, the O'Brennens had Muggle friends too, many of whom were equally insane. And, of course, the triplets did not remain babies for long, nor for that matter, did they remain my only three siblings. By the time I was eleven, my list of siblings included not only Patrick, Brian, and Chris, but also Charley, Oliver, and Mary. (Who, other than the triplets, were each born separately. Just in case you wondered.)

Meanwhile, Dad continued to happily teach Quidditch lessons for a living, but in his private life it wasn't enough to satisfy his obsession with the game. You see, even after I had Mum's permission to fly, the fact remained that my siblings and I spent most of our time with Muggles. And, due to the fact that Dad had no particular desire to get into trouble with the Ministry of Magic, he couldn't exactly teach Quidditch in the presence of our Muggle friends. His inner Quidditch junkie was in serious withdrawal. Not even Paddy could keep track of the times that Dad shook his head and said wistfully:

"If only Muggles could play Quidditch! It's not right that they're so deprived!"

It was Mum who inadvertently provided a way to adapt Quidditch for Muggles. She had had the song _Bicycle Race_ by Queen stuck in her head for a period of two weeks straight before she suddenly got up, ran out of the house, and returned with bicycles for the whole family. (She's random and impulsive like that. Guess the mystery of why I'm so completely nutty is finally solved.) The result was that we ended up teaching the local Muggle kids a variation of Quidditch, played on bicycles, with non-enchanted Bludgers that could be thrown or batted by the Beaters. The Muggle version of the Snitch was a golf-ball dangling on a string carried by our owl, Flutterby. Since Dad was aware of Muggle parents' annoying tendency to disapprove of sports in which their children were liable to be hit by blunt iron projectiles, he had to make yet another change to the original Bludger. Thus, the Muggle-adapted Bludgers were made not of iron, but out of sponges. Obviously, he couldn't use a standard Penifold Quaffle: the Gripping Charm that makes it possible to catch a Quaffle one-handed, let alone the fact that modern Quaffles are bewitched to fall unnaturally slowly if dropped, might be somewhat conspicuous. Therefore, Dad crafted a reproduction of an ancient Quaffle with a handle, like in the days before the Gripping Charm was invented. It was then a simple matter to construct goals out of baskets, like the pre-hoop goals in the days of old. Only shorter. Much, much shorter. Of course it wasn't the same, and Dad never did quite get over the injustice of how, no matter what he did, those poor deprived Muggles would never be able to fly.

"Oh, I'm sure being a Muggle can't be all that bad," Mum assured Dad after he had awaken screaming one night from a nightmare in which he was a Muggle, all broomsticks in the house had turned into vacuum-cleaners, the Galleon was replaced with something called a Euro, and Lonan O'Malcon was the Minister of Magic in 13 different countries.

"What do you mean it can't be that bad?" Dad shook his head. "Those poor deprived people. How do they survive? They're like…like pigeons with their wings clipped."

Mum blinked. "Pigeons?"

"Well, maybe not pigeons. Pigeons leave their droppings everywhere. They're like….a Snitch with no wings, that's it!"

"So a Muggle is a golden golf ball?"

"Yes," he sighed. "Depressing, isn't it?"

"Well, at least they're still shiny."

"But they can't fly."

"Unless you hit them with a golf club."

"Hmm…" Dad pondered. "Maybe I need a new metaphor…"

Susan and Eddy, however, never expressed any distress at their inability to fly, and seemed more than content to bat sponges around on bicycles. More than content: whenever the O'Brennens played Beater, victory was ensured. But alas, our days together of Queen, makeshift Quidditch, and Pensieve water balloons could not last forever. Time flies when you're having fun, and so it was that I was somehow too busy dodging sponges to notice that I was approaching eleven years of age. Soon, very soon, I would be on my way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and after that, nothing would ever be quite the same again.

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**Author's Note:**Sorry if the ending was a bit abrupt just there, but this chapter was getting way too long. Or maybe I'm just way too impatient for the beginning of the next chapter. We have big plans for this plotline yessssss preccccccccciousssssssssssssss we doesssssssss…..Ahem….erm…sorry. Where was I?

Anyhow, that's Deanna's pre-Hogwarts childhood in a nutshell with some of her parents' crazy antics. Actually, it turned out to be more about her parents than about Deanna herself, but hey, Deanna just wasn't as interesting in her more innocent years as she's about to become. Precioussssssssssss…. (I've got to stop doing that.)

Fear not, for if all goes as planned, things are only going to get more insane as the story unfolds. I mean, honestly, who needs sanity, anyway? I've lived my whole life without it and pity those Muggles still bound by the constraints of the lucid mind. Those poor, deprived souls are like…quaeso without the cheese. Yeah. That's about right. Or a purple flying monkey without the wings. Which means it's just a purple monkey. Come to think of it, aren't monkeys colorblind? So, as far as said purple monkey knows, it's just…a monkey. And that, my friends, is depressing. It's late at night and I've been eating sugary substances. Can you tell? Ah well. To be continued…. (I swear I've heard that line somewhere before)….with 42 percent more Potions mishaps.


End file.
